MACBETH.

ACT I.

SCENE I.—An open place.

Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches.

1 Witch. When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

2 Witch. When the hurlyburly's done,

When the battle's lost and won:

3 Witch. That will be ere set of sun.

1 Witch. Where the place?

2 Witch.

Upon the heath:

3 Witch. There to meet with Macbeth.

1 Witch. I come, Graymalkin!' All. Paddock' calls.-Anon.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair :3

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

[Witches vanish.

One witch is to be supposed calling with the voice of a cat, and another with the croaking of a toad.

2 Paddock, a toad.

3 To us, perverse and malignant as we are, fair is foul, and foul

is fair.

SCENE II.-A camp near Fores.

Alarum within.

Enter King DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENOX, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Soldier.

Dun. What bloody man is that? He can report, As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt

The newest state.

This is the sergeant,

Mal.
Who, like a good and hardy soldier, fought
'Gainst my captivity:-Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil,
As thou didst leave it.

Sold.

Doubtfully it stood.

As two spent swimmers, that do cling together, And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald (Worthy to be a rebel; for, to that,

The multiplying villainies of nature

2

Do swarm upon him,) from the western isles
Of Kernes and Gallowglasses is supplied;
But all's too weak;

For brave Macbeth, (well he deserves that name,)
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
Which smok'd with bloody execution,

Like valour's minion,

Carv'd out his passage, till he fac'd the slave;
And ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to th' chaps,
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.

Dun. O, valiant cousin! worthy gentleman!
Sold. As whence the sun 'gins his reflexion
Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break;
So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come,

Kernes were light-armed, and Gallowglasses heavy-armed Irish foot-soldiers.

3 i. e. the quarter of the East.

Discomfort swells. Mark, king of Scotland, mark: No sooner justice had, with valour arm'd,

Compell'd these skipping Kernes to trust their heels;
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,

With furbish'd arms, and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.

Dun.

Dismay'd not this

Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?
Sold.

Yes;
As sparrows, eagles; or the hare, the lion.
If I say sooth, I must report they were
As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks ;'
So they

Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
Or memorize another Golgotha,

I cannot tell:

But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.

Dun. So well thy words become thee, as thy wounds;

They smack of honour both:-Go get him surgeons. [Exit Soldier, attended.

Enter Rosse.

Who comes here?

Mal.

The worthy thane of Rosse.

Len. What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look,

That seems to speak things strange.2

God save the king!

From Fife, great king,

Rosse.
Dun. Whence cam'st thou, worthy thane?
Rosse.

Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky,
And fan our people cold.

Norway bimself, with terrible numbers,

with double charges.

i. e. That seems about to speak great things.

Assisted by that most disloyal traitor,
The thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict:
Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,
Confronted him with self-comparisons,'

Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit: And, to conclude,
The victory fell on us :-

Dun.

Rosse. That now

Great happiness!

Sweno, the Norway's king, craves composition;

Nor would we deign him burial of his men,

Till he disbursed, at St. Colmes' Inch,2

Ten thousand dollars to our general use.

Dun. No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive

Our bosom interest :-Go, pronounce his death,

And with his former title greet Macbeth.

Rosse. I'll see it done.

Dun. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.

SCENE III.-A heath.

Thunder. Enter the three Witches.

1 Witch. Where hast thou been, sister?

2 Witch. Killing swine.

3 Witch. Sister, where thou?

[Exeunt.

1 Witch. A sailor's wife had chesnuts in her lap, And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd : - Ĝive me, quoth I:

Aroint thee, witch! the rump-fed ronyons cries. Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' th' Tiger:

1 showed he was his equal.

2 Now called Inchcomb, a small island lying in the Firth of Edinburgh.

3 Aroint, avaunt, be gone.

✦ alluding to the poverty of the woman, as not being able to procure better provisions than offals.

5 ronyon, a scabby or mangy woman. scurf.

Fh. royneux; royne,

But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,'
I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.

2 Witch. I'll give thee a wind.2
1 Witch. Thou art kind.

3 Witch. And I another.

1 Witch. I myself have all the other;
And the very ports they blow.
All the quarters that they know 3
I' th' shipman's card.

I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall, neither night nor day,
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid :
Weary sev'n-nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine :*
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd.
Look what I have.

2 Witch. Show me, show me.

1 Witch. Here I have a pilot's thumb,

Wreck'd, as homeward he did come. [Drum within. 3 Witch. A drum, a drum;

Macbeth doth come.

All. The weird sisters, hand in hand,

Posters of the sea and land,

Thus do go about, about;

Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again, to make up nine:
Peace!-the charm's wound up.

'Whatever might be the animal the witch personated, the tail (it was believed) would still be wanting.

This free gift of a wind is to be considered as an act of sisterly friendship, for witches were supposed to sell them.

3 i. e. the winds know.

This mischief was supposed to be put in execution by means of a waxen image, which represented the person that was to be consumed by slow degrees.

G